The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus for producing booklet.
There has been well known a case binding apparatus that forms a booklet by covering a bunch of recording papers to be contents of the booklet (hereinafter, the term of the abovementioned “recording papers” is referred to as “main content sheets”) with a cover sheet, on which a front cover image and a back cover image are formed (further, a lining cover image would be also formed as needed), in such a manner that the main content sheets are enveloped by the cover sheet while one side, upper and lower sides of the bunch of the main content sheets are made to be open. In addition, there has been also well known an image forming apparatus that forms images onto the main content sheets and the cover sheet to be supplied to the case binding apparatus (for instance, refer to Tokkai 2002-361967 Japanese Non-Examined Patent Publication).
In the image forming apparatus, set forth in Patent Document 1 (Tokkai 2002-361967 Japanese Non-Examined Patent Publication), the cover sheet image data and the main-content sheet image data are inputted from the external apparatus, and the cover sheet image data are handled independent of the main-content sheet image data. The image forming apparatus forms the cover sheet image based on the cover sheet image data inputted from the external apparatus.
According to the image forming apparatus set forth in Patent Document 1, since the cover sheet image data and the main-content sheet image data are respectively inputted as independent data, the image forming apparatus can recognize whether the inputted image data are the cover sheet image data or the main-content sheet image data. Accordingly, the image forming apparatus can feed the appropriate paper sheet corresponding to the inputted image data, to form the image on it.
However, in order to input the cover sheet image data independent of the main-content sheet image data or vice versa, it is necessary to form the cover sheet image data and the main-content sheet image data being independent of each other. This requires a lot of time and effort.
To overcome the abovementioned drawback, it has been desired to provide an image forming apparatus, which makes it possible to acquire the cover sheet image data and the main-content sheet image data as consecutive image data.
When the cover sheet image data and the main-content sheet image data are acquired as the consecutive image data, and specifically when at least a part of the cover sheet image data is acquired as consecutive image data succeeding the main-content sheet image data, it is impossible to recognize which page is either the cover sheet image data or the main-content sheet image data, unless the acquiring operation of the whole consecutive image data is completed. Accordingly, in order to respectively form the images represented by the both image data onto the appropriate paper sheets, it is necessary to commence the image forming operation and/or the paper feeding operation after the acquiring operation of the whole consecutive image data is completed. This results in deterioration of the productivity of the booklets.